Famke Jansson’s role as Jean Grey in the X-Men movies required a lot of homework for the actress.
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The actress was asked during a panel at Denver Comic Con if she had any knowledge of the X-Men comics series before being cast as Jean Grey.
“Nope!” Jansson replied bluntly. “I know, it’s terrible. Especially since you guys are the real fans. You’re the real deal. And here I am and when they approached me I was like, ‘X-Men, yeah, I kind of heard of it, but I don’t really know.’”
Jansson did but in the effort and did some research to find out exactly what she was missing.
“Sp then I started reading these comic books and I was like, ‘Wow!’” Jansson continued. “I didn’t just go in. Once I got the audition, I went into a little comic book store in New York.”
Jansson says that the level of devotion from the fans she discovered at that store was somewhat intimidating at first.
“Everybody loves the character of the X-Men and Jean Grey and have very specific ideas of who they are and how they should be played. So that was some responsibility.”
Janssen played Jean Grey as a lead cast member in X-Men, X2: X-Men United, and X-Men: The Last Stand. She returned in small roles in The Wolverine and X-Men: Days of Future Past.
Janssen’s co-stars Hugh Jackman and Patrick Stewart gave their definitive final performances for the X-Men franchise in Logan earlier this year. With Fox continuing the story of the young X-Men in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, none of the other original trilogy X-Men are expected to return in future films.
Sophie Turner took over the role of Jean Grey in X-Men: Apocalypse, the third film in the X-Men franchise’s prequel series. Turner’s Jean will take center stage in X-Men: Dark Phoenix, releasing in November 2018.
Janssen’s debut in the first X-Men movie was released in theaters in 2000. The film opened to $54 million at the box office and went on to earn $157.3 million domestically and $296.3 million at the box office globally.
The film currently has a 74.91 ComicBook.com Composite Score and a 3.73 out of 5 ComicBook.com user rating, ranking it at number 27 on the list of all comic book movies as ranked by ComicBook.com readers. Let us know what you think of the original X-Men movie by giving the movie your own ComicBook.com User Rating below.
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